Chicago, IL—Market trend predictions for the packaged goods industry reported by Mintel, a global market research consultancy, forecast a facelift in 2010. As the recession recedes, manufacturers will lure consumers out of hiding with new package design and merchandising strategies. Lynn Dornblaser, Mintel’s new products expert, contends, “On retail shelves, we expect today’s familiar megatrends—health and wellness, convenience, and sustainability—to get a fresh, new makeover for 2010.”

The following trends are some of many initiatives that will be taken by sellers this upcoming year to defibrillate our economic tachycardia—at least in the packaged goods industry.

• Replacement of nutritional symbols with clear nutritional information on food packages. With the plethora of health concerns that exist today, consumers are very conscious about what they put in their bodies, influencing what they buy at the food store. Currently, some health or nutritional symbols on packages are ambiguous or unclear. To alleviate this confusion for consumers and to better promote the health benefits of their products, producers will explicitly state on the front of the package how exactly their product will benefit consumers’ stamina, fitness or general health.

• Chic packaging of everyday products. To make the weekly food store trip more enjoyable, novel, boutique-inspired packaging will soon envelop ordinary products like toothpaste and juice. For 2010, a usually mundane bathroom re-stock will be jazzed up with a selection of snazzy soap and flashy floss.

• Store brand boom. Private label brands are beginning to resemble name brand items more and more—a smart move for marketers when recession consumers are readjusting personal budgets. In 2010 these low-cost, high-quality private label brands will thrive.

Other predicted trends include sodium reduction in foods, the prevalence of the term “local,” item color coding and marketing emphasis on product simplicity of use.

Published in WholeFoods Magagzine, January 2010